Perpetrators

Several days have passed since the Feb. 15 airing of "Northern Exposure," yet I haven't heard anyone talking about how or why the writers gave Maggie license to commit physical violence against Joel and even to glory in it. There've been no bellicose calls to the talk radio stations, no editorial outcries in The Times. There's been nothing at all. Yet, if Joel (who's roughly the same size as Maggie) had hit Maggie, it would have been different. Our society's schizophrenia is frightening.

Adam Lanza was, by all accounts, a strange child. Matthew Lysiak's new book, "Newtown: An American Tragedy," tackles the challenge of drawing a portrait of the troubled young man, who killed 20 children and six adults in a Connecticut elementary school last year. In junior high, Lysiak tells us, young Adam carried around an empty briefcase and insisted on sanitizing his desk each time he sat down. As an adolescent, his Little League teammates found it amusing when he was hit by a pitch - they knew he suffered from a form of sensory deprivation and couldn't feel pain.

In the two July 9 commentaries on Marie Noe's receiving probation for killing eight of her infants, neither writer comments on our two-tier system of justice. Research has consistently revealed the discrepancy between sentencing of white, middle-class perpetrators and the sentencing of the poor and/or non-whites. No perspective on justice is complete without mentioning this disturbing fact. MONA DAVIS Cypress

If you liked "wilding," you're gonna love the "knockout game. " I have just become aware, thanks to Fox News and an author who publishes under the conspiracy-minded World Net Daily imprint, that roving gangs of black adolescents are marauding through our streets, randomly attacking innocent white victims in a racist ritual known as the "knockout game. " The motive is mischief, not robbery. These impeccable sources also claim the mainstream media, in a woeful act of political correctness, refuse to report the racial nature of this crime wave.

Re "Pakistanis shocked by video of Taliban flogging," April 4 It is unacceptable that atrocities continue to be committed by the Pakistani Taliban. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusaf Raza Gillani must take strong actions against the perpetrators. It is even more shocking that a religious scholar has endorsed such behavior on national television. It is unfortunate that the Taliban and the mullahs have taken Muslims back to an age of ignorance. The prophet Muhammad was appointed by God to raise the status of mankind, but the extremists refuse to follow in his footsteps.

ABU GHOSH, Israel -- Dozens of residents of this Arab village near Jerusalem woke up Tuesday to find their tires slashed and their walls spray-painted with hateful messages, their community the latest target of a series of politically motivated vandalism in Israel. The late-night attack surprised residents of Abu Ghosh, known for its warm, neighborly relations with Jewish communities west of Jerusalem. "Not in our worst dreams did we imagine this happening here,” said city official Issa Jaber.

As a psychotherapist working with adults who were sexually abused as children, and having formerly worked directly with abused children and their families, I am dismayed at Kinsley's trivialization of the child-abuse (primarily sexual abuse) issue, in particular his assertion that child abuse is not a systemic problem. Sexual abuse of children has always existed and has been systematically condoned and sanctioned by society through silence and denial. Kinsley's attitude only further perpetuates the myth that sexual abuse is rare and is committed by perverts.

The Los Angeles Police Department announced Thursday that it would take the unusual step of no longer issuing press releases or immediately confirming instances of celebrity "swatting," saying intense media coverage seems to be fueling more incidents. Cmdr. Andrew Smith, who oversees the LAPD Media Relations Section, said the procedural change was necessary because of concerns about the privacy of the victims as well as the belief that publicizing such incidents was emboldening copycats.

August 4, 1996 | BRUCE HERSCHENSOHN, Bruce Herschensohn is a distinguished fellow with the Claremont Institute

When there is an incident of international terrorism, our lawmakers' immediate reaction is to enact new regulations that further erode the liberties of our own citizens rather than erode the liberties of terrorists. Simultaneously, interviews with American travelers are exhibited throughout the world as those travelers say they will gladly accommodate new inconveniences and costs brought about under conditions of terror. Just think: All terrorists have to do to cause more inconvenience and higher cost for Americans is to commit more terrorist attacks.

From pulp fiction to comic noir, all things suspenseful and suspicious were represented at the sixth annual Men of Mystery luncheon, an event that lets fans get up close and personal with their favorite gentlemen of the genre. We checked in with some of the 65 male mystery authors at the Irvine Marriott to find out what thrills and kills. * Barry Eisler Most recent novel: "Killing Rain" (Putnam) Give us a plot summary.

BEIRUT - The principal U.S.-backed Syrian rebel group is demanding that an Islamist insurgent faction turn over the suspected killer of one of its commanders in a slaying that has highlighted tension among allies fighting to overthrow the Syrian government. "We demand that the perpetrators of this heinous crime be handed over to be tried by an independent judicial commission," Louay Meqdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said Saturday in a telephone interview from Istanbul, Turkey.

ABU GHOSH, Israel -- Dozens of residents of this Arab village near Jerusalem woke up Tuesday to find their tires slashed and their walls spray-painted with hateful messages, their community the latest target of a series of politically motivated vandalism in Israel. The late-night attack surprised residents of Abu Ghosh, known for its warm, neighborly relations with Jewish communities west of Jerusalem. "Not in our worst dreams did we imagine this happening here,” said city official Issa Jaber.

The Los Angeles Police Department announced Thursday that it would take the unusual step of no longer issuing press releases or immediately confirming instances of celebrity "swatting," saying intense media coverage seems to be fueling more incidents. Cmdr. Andrew Smith, who oversees the LAPD Media Relations Section, said the procedural change was necessary because of concerns about the privacy of the victims as well as the belief that publicizing such incidents was emboldening copycats.

DENVER - As the manhunt expanded Wednesday for the killer of Tom Clements, Colorado's top corrections official, shock and sadness spread across the nation for the loss of what many called a true innovator in how prisons should work. "What Tom brought was a completely different perspective," said a shaken Doug Wilson, Colorado's state public defender, who had frequently worked with Clements. "He wasn't a cop. He was a man who cared not only for those he worked with, but he treated inmates with respect and dignity.

The 22-year-old Palmdale man who created Manti Te'o's fake girlfriend broke his silence for the first time, saying he perpetrated the elaborate hoax to build a relationship with the football star. Ronaiah Tuiasosopo pretended to be Te'o's girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, for months, communicating on the phone and through social media. Tuiasosopo went so far as to disguise his voice to sound like a woman's when he spoke to Te'o on the phone, his attorney, Milton Grimes, said in an interview with The Times.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has busted an international cyber crime ring that infected 11 million computers around the world and resulted in more than $850 million in losses. Facebook Inc.'s security team assisted law enforcement in the investigation by helping identify compromised accounts and the perpetrators around the globe who stole credit cards and bank and personal information - and in some cases spammed Facebook users - after infecting computers with malicious software.

The perpetrators of a New Year's Day revision of the HOLLYWOOD sign revealed themselves to the world Sunday afternoon in Venice. Charles Arack, a member of the rock 'n' roll group called The Raffeys, admitted at an open-air concert on Ocean Front Walk that the band used bed sheets to alter the famed 50-foot-high sign to read RAFFEYSOD. Arack, 25, said the New Orleans-based group is laying claim to new turf. "We are here to conquer Hollywood," he said. "And we definitely want to let people know."

Half the offenders in 20 million cases of rape, robbery and assault committed from 1982 through 1984 were known to their victims, according to a study released Sunday by the Justice Department. The department's Bureau of Justice Statistics determined that overall, 46% of the crimes were committed by total strangers, 31% by friends and acquaintances, 8% by relatives and 11% by people known to the victims on sight. The remaining 4% could not be classified.

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday condemned the brutal beating of a Palestinian teenager by a gang of Jewish youths shouting anti-Arab slurs. Though racially motivated attacks by both Israelis and Palestinians are not uncommon, the incident Thursday night in central Jerusalem has triggered a wave of soul-searching among Israelis, particularly after one suspect expressed pride in his actions because the victim was Arab. "In the state of Israel, we are not prepared to tolerate racism," Netanyahu said Tuesday.

The recent conviction of a Delray Beach, Fla., loan officer for his participation in a scheme to persuade seniors to refinance their reverse mortgages should serve as a warning to the friends and relatives of elderly people about the surprising ease with which senior homeowners can be exploited. That the loan officer and his co-conspirators, including a title agent, were creating false loan applications and pocketing the money casts a pall over the lending business. And with good reason, according to the National Council on Aging, which ranks homeowner/reverse mortgage scams as the eighth most prevalent scam specifically targeting seniors.